Spanish Influences in Saipan

I spent the weekend with my friend Jackie and her Ex- Javier. Javier is from a small northern city in Spain. He was very kind all weekend and he and Sylvie got on famously. Friday night I came home from work to the two of them cooking this amazing dinner of appetizers and Paella. Yum!

What a beautiful Paella! It tasted as good as it looks. I was tasked with buying saffron and the ingredients for Sangria. What a treasure hunt it turned out to be.
Lessons learned:

• there is no such thing as Saffron on Saipan; not even in the restaurants
• wine is incredibly expensive and none of it is very good.
• There are no liqueur stores. Nor do the markets carry a great selection of liqueur. I went to many many places to find brandy and triple sec. never found triple sec. The brandy was a kind I never heard of and was not even marked with a price. They needed to wipe off the dust before it would scan.
  
• Strawberries are $10 a carton. Find other fruit
• MORAL: Never make anything that requires more than 5 ingredients. It will take you days to assemble them.
  

Saturday, we went to the Pacific Island Club for brunch and spent the day swimming. I have a fantastic video of Sylviah swimming like a fish but I can't upload it here as the internet speed is too slow.






On Sunday, we had a lazy morning. I took Sylviah to the park down by American Memorial Park.


Then I put Jackie and Sylvie down for a nap. Once they were asleep, Javier and I went to Objan for my fist Scuba Dive since arriving back in Saipan. It was amazing! Beautiful warm water. Millions of fish, big and small, and best of all, a green sea turtle that was in a particularly playful mood. This turtle was circling me and came feet from my face and hands. unfortunately, I did not have my camera setting to underwater exposure so the photos do not do the magnificent colors justice.




This little clown fish was trying to be so ferocious protecting his little anemone home. He was darting in and out of it and facing off with me as if to dare me to touch it. I almost laughed inside my mask.

No words can really explain the feeling of serenity and beauty of the underwater world. Everything appears other-worldly, like suspended animation and then flashes of action. Even the bubbles from our regulator seem spectacular.


Last words: last night Sylviah showed her first real signs of home sickness. We went for an afternoon swim. When we were showering off afterwards, she inexplicably burst into tears and wailed I WANT MY BABA. I MISS MY BABA! BABA! BABA! BABA! I WANNA GO AIRPLANE! UP! DOWN UP AND THEN BABA! She was truly inconsolable. I tried to explain the number of days until we would return home but nothing worked. Guess it is time to come home. We miss you all.

Sylvie's YaYa

One of the things I will miss most about Saipan are the Philipino women. They are the friendliest warmest humans, on the whole, that I have ever met. Whether it is the woman at the coffee shop or the nannies, they shower affection on you from the moment you meet. It is sincere and can't help but make you smile. Here is a photo of Sylvie with YaYa (nanny in tagalog) Mary. Sylvie announced on the way to drop her off today that she loves Yaya Mary and that Yaya Mary takes very good care of her. We will all hate to leave Yaya Mary behind.

This photo is of Angie's youngest son Dylan. He and Sylvie are quite sweet on each other. Dylan and Sylvie play three days a week from after school until 5:00 when I pick her up. So Cute!

Island Girl

When I agreed to take the job in Saipan, I had several concerns. My biggest was leaving Matt and the boys behind. My second biggest was bringing Sylvie with me. I had no idea how the boys would get along without me and how Sylvie would adjust to yet another disruption in her short life with our family.

However, I am pleased to report that the boys seem to be getting along famously and Sylvie is absolutely settled in the ways of island life (with the exception of her irrational fear of hermit crabs). I have added photos to this post as proof that Sylvie is adjusting well. I am sorry to the boys as I am quite certain that these photos will fill them with jealousy.

The photo of Sylvie on the melon truck was taken this past Saturday. It was by far the coolest day on the island since we arrived, about 79 degrees. It rained all day. However, our day was made sweeter when Sylvie spotted this truck on the side of the road and declared that she wanted to eat a melon. We pulled off and the man persuaded us to buy a 16 pound melon! We took it over to our friend Jackie's house and ate it for lunch. It was the sweetest watermelon I have ever eaten. However, even with 5 of us eating on it, we had too much. So Sylvie and I brought it to the nanny's house today to share with the other kids in the neighborhood.

The two photos of Sylvie at the swimming pool were taken the first Saturday on the island. It was also kind of rainy and overcast, but extremely warm. It turned out to be a perfect day for swimming as even with the clouds and 70 spf sunscreen applied at regular intervals, I got fried. Luckily, Sylvie has nice dark skin and had the extra protection of her swimshirt, she didn't get burnt with the exception of a little red nose.

The last photo was taken at Lau Lau beach right near our house last year and our apartment this year. It is a spot that is near and dear to my heart. However, we went they day after the tsunami and the beach was covered in seafare weckage from the incredible oceanic currents caused by the incident in Japan. There were four rows of seaweed, rocks, shells, critters and other things that made the beach more unpleaseant than usual. We just went for an hour after work so Sylvie was in her underpants and t-shirt. We had a good time but she is definately more fond of the pool than the beach. I think this is apparent by her expression in the bottom photo. I was trying to encourage her and engage her in building a Sea turtle in the sand. Each time we scooped the sand she insited on washing her hands in a bucket of water. She liked decorating the turtle with shells and sea glass but the actual collecting of the decorations was not her favorite. Well, I haven't lost my determination to make a beach bum out of her. We will try again this week!

First Week Back on the Island

Well, we left for Saipan on my 36th birthday. Traveling for 32 hours with a 2-year old is not my ideal way to spend my birthday! However, Sylvie did remarkably well. I couldn't help reflecting on how vastly different each of the three flights half-way around the world have been with this child. The first flight home from China with her was 30-some hours of pacing the tiny isles with her in a sling. She absolutely refused to allow us to sit down with her. She was terrified, devastated and grief stricken, poor girl. Three months later we were on a flight back over the ocean to Saipan and back again four months later. In those short months, she had already changed quite a bit and could be entertained by Matt and I. She would sit for short periods of time. She did sleep although only after she was exhausted from bawling her head off! This time however, we played the whole time. We did puzzles and water color paints and told stories and sang songs. She played pretend with her dolls and watched a movie. She settled quite easily for her nap and slept a good 2 hours. When she got restless we did the hokey pokey where the stewardesses heat up the food. She was really quite brilliant. OK, enough about getting here!

Now that we are here we have been getting life settled. It really is such a hassle. I wont go into boring details but lets just say that it has consumed the better part of my first week. We are now feeling quite settled in out apartment. I have posted the view from our third floor balcony.

We went to the Thursday night street market where there are dozens of local food stalls, local entertainment, music and most of all hundreds of people. I am glad we did it but I won't go again. Those kinds of crowds and a toddler in a stroller don't jive. We did however score some great local foods; some past favorites, some I had never tried before. As for old favorites, we had dim sum, noodles, fried chicken, rice and Lumpia all for $5. We also got to try coconut candy, fresh Lychee fruit, and a local side dish called coco (young papaya pickled and spicy), and my favorite tiny finger bananas (after you eat these you can never truly enjoy a US banana again).

I started work on Wednesday and was so glad to see all my old colleagues again. I met with the nurses and they gave me such a warm welcome. It feels good to be back. However there is really much more to be dine than I can possibly accomplish in the short time I have here.

The week ended on an exciting note as an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale devastated Japan and initiated a tsunami to add to the destruction. A tsunami warning was issued for the islands in the Pacific and all of Saipan headed for high ground. Luckily, Sylvie and I have friends in high places so we headed up to our friends house high on top of the cliffs above Lau Lau Bay and had a wonderful dinner, a couple of beers and some high spirited conversation as we simultaneously watched the ocean and the news reports. There was a decent surge and some crazy ocean currents, but no real impact was felt here.

Sylvie and I celebrated our first week on the island today by having a day all to ourselves. We went to the World Resort and swam all day long. It was mostly overcast. It even rained sporadically throughout the day. I was lathering 70spf sunscreen on all day and I am still fried! Sylvie had a long sleeve rash guard on thank goodness, but her little nose and cheeks are a bit rosy this evening. She is an absolute fish! I can not believe her today. She was jumping in the water, fully submerging her head and floating up to the surface without me hardly touching her over and over and over today. She had a life jacket but preferred to go without it because she wanted to swim all the way under the water. She is sooooooooooooo ready for swimming lessons when we get back. She has NO FEAR of the water. What a bog change from the little girl that wouldn't get in the bath with 2 inches in it when we first met her. Well, I need to get to bed. I have no clock in my apartment so I have been getting up with the sun each morning. As a mostly agnostic human, I have to admit that I feel remarkably close to God when I watch the sun rise over the ocean in the silence each morning.

I can not close without saying how much I miss my boys. I have intentionally avoided many of the places that were their favorites because I miss them so much. Yet I am surrounded by memories of our wonderful time together as a family on this island. Kierik, Kaden, and Matt, I am counting the days until we are all together as a family once more.

Return to Paradise?

It has been almost a year since our family retrned to the mainland from Saipan. We have been very busy! The first photo is of our courtdate with Sylviah just before Thanksgiving when we finalized the adoption process. What a happy day for our family. No more paperwork, no more home visits...just our family. Ahhh.

This photo is of our family at Christmas time. This is the last phot we have of Kierik without braces! He is turning into a teenager before my very eyes. He is officially taller than me with bigger feet and hands. I knew the day would come so how come I still see my chubby little toddler when I look at him?

For all of you who knew Sylvie while we were in Saipan, you will barely recognize her now. Her physical appearance has changed quite dramatically. She continues to grow like a weed. She is three feet tall already and wears 3T-4T clothes. What happened to my baby? Her physical appearance is nothing, however, to the amazing growth she has had developmentally and emotionally. She no longer takees a bottle (gave that up right after Thanksgiving), she eats everything in sight, she is social and a bit bossy, she loves her granparents and is really only happy when she is the center of attention. She has started gymnastics classes, goes to preschool, and is almost potty trained. She talks a mile a minute and is so clear and articulate that she is the language model for one of the other boys at preschool! Who would have guessed that would happen a year ago when she hardly knew English.

We continue to try to connect her with Chinese culture. We are so lucky to have good friends from China that help us to expand our learning and understanding. Plus they are teaching us to cook amazing Chinese food. We relish these relationships and hope Sylvie will too. We are a part of the Madison Families with Children from China group. In this photo we are making 3 dozen rabbit cookies for the Lunar New Year celebration. What a mess! We had a great time, but I am not sure that people will appreciate their rabbits decorated in blue sprinkles (Sylvie's favorite color.)

Well, I am writing this post because it looks like I will be returning to Saipan for the month of March. This time, sadly, it will only be Sylvie and I. I look forward to reconnecting with old friends and continuing the work that I began on this wonderful and complicated island.